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Head of Greek privatization fund, Finance Ministry general secretary resign over power plant charges

The head of Greece's privatization fund, Takis Athanasopoulos, and the Finance Ministry's general secretary Giorgos Mergos resigned on Saturday.

Their resignations came after former managers of the Public Power Corporation were charged with breach of duty on Friday for commissioning in 2007 the Aliveri power plant, which lost the company about 100 million euros.

Mergos and Athanasopoulos served on PPC's board at the time. Both men said they were resigning for ethical reasons, pending the court case.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras accepted the resignations of the two officials.

Christina Papaconstantinou, until now the general secretary of fiscal policy at the Finance Ministry, will take over Mergos's position.

A new candidate to take over as head of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund's (HRADF), known as TAIPED in Greek, is to be proposed for approval by Parliament's institutions and transparency committee in the next few days.